Tim Cook, Apple CEO, and Deirdre O’Brien, senior vice president of retail, launch sales of the Apple Vision Pro in New York City this week. (Apple Photo) First up this week on the GeekWire Podcast: an inside look at developing software for the Apple Vision Pro spatial computing headset. We got a chance this week to talk with a longtime software developer for Apple platforms, Ken Case, co-founder and CEO of Seattle-based Omni Group, which makes productivity apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and just released a version of its OmniPlan project management software for the newly launched Apple Vision ..read more

OmniPlan 4 on Apple Vision Pro — click to expand. (Omni Group Image) OmniPlan 4 on Apple Vision Pro — click to expand. (Omni Group Image) OmniPlan 4 on Apple Vision Pro — click to expand. (Omni Group Image) Ken Case‘s dad worked for many years at Boeing in industrial engineering for highly complex projects such as the Boeing 747 and Saturn V booster rocket. Case remembers his dad bringing home large Gantt charts — long rolls of paper with timelines and tasks — so that he could unfurl them across the living room floor and over the coffee table to annotate them manually. These days, as co-fo ..read more

Microsoft Excel inside Apple Vision Pro. (Microsoft Image) Despite their longstanding rivalry, Microsoft has made a tradition of developing software for Apple computers, stretching back to the early days of the Macintosh in the 1980s. Turns out the Vision Pro will be no exception. Microsoft announced Wednesday that its productivity apps will be available for Apple’s new mixed-reality headset when it launches on Feb. 2: Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Loop. “We have worked closely with Apple for many years to bring these experiences to iPhone, iPad, and Mac,” wro ..read more

A search-and-rescue helicopter responds to Jones Creek in Dinosaur National Monument after receiving an iPhone SOS call. (Photo via Kristi Stiffler.) I love the outdoors. Some of my best moments have been spent backpacking in the Pacific Northwest or, more recently, rafting the rivers of Colorado and Utah. So, last fall, when Apple introduced a new iPhone 14 SOS feature that allowed users to send emergency messages via low-orbit satellites from the wilderness, I was intrigued. I bought the new device, walked through a demo explaining how to use the technology, and then basically forgot about i ..read more

Some of Microsoft’s biggest missteps over the years have come not from being too late but rather too early, leaving the door open for competitors — especially Apple, it seems — to popularize a product category years later, when the technology and the market are ready. Pocket PC … iPhone Tablet PC … iPad HoloLens … Vision Pro? That last one sure looks like a possibility after Apple unveiled its new augmented reality headset this week. The device, which looks like a pair of high-tech ski goggles, lets users navigate with gestures in a manner very similar to Microsoft’s mixed reality headset ..read more

Apple’s Vision Pro. (Apple Photo) Apple newly announced headset positions the company as a contender in the evolving field of virtual and augmented reality, and highlights the divergent paths that major players are taking through the current state of VR/AR. While VR/AR has been relatively quiet compared to its pre-COVID boom period, the industry hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, 2023 has seen the field get intense, with both new and old competitors bringing new products and platforms into the field. Apple looks like it’s placing an early bet on the theory that augmented/mixed reality will fundam ..read more

A new lawsuit alleges that an agreement between Amazon and Apple, ostensibly intended to crack down on counterfeiters, illegally restricted competition and raised prices for iPhones, iPads, and other Apple devices on Amazon’s online marketplace. The proposed class-action suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Seattle, piggybacks on an Italian antitrust investigation into the agreement. Apple and Amazon have denied the allegations in the past. An initial $225 million fine against them in Italy has since been overturned by an administrative court. The pact, signed in 2018, reduced the number ..read more

Windows 11 Photos users will be able to connect to iCloud to access their iPhone photos. (Microsoft Image) PC users will be able to access pictures from their iPhones via the Windows 11 Photos app through a new integration announced by Microsoft this morning. It’s a significant move to bridge Apple’s popular smartphone and Microsoft’s widely used operating system. It also highlights what continues to be a missing link: the inability to access Apple’s proprietary iMessage protocol or Messages app natively from Windows machines. RELATED STORY Microsoft’s new Designer app integrates OpenAI’s DALL ..read more

A view of the Space Needle from Apple’s Seattle office building at 333 Dexter Ave. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) Apple is joining the growing list of tech companies calling workers back to the office, setting April 11 as a deadline for corporate workers to be back in person at least one day per week. According to a memo sent Friday by CEO Tim Cook, and first reported by Bloomberg, three weeks after April 11, employees will be expected in the office twice per week. By May 23, the requirement rises to at least three days per week. Apple has a significant presence in the Seattle area, wher ..read more

“Fortnite,” by Epic Games. (Bigstock Photo) A federal judge ruled Friday that Apple can no longer prohibit individual developers from offering their own independent payment options in the iOS App Store. However, the same judge also stopped short of declaring Apple a monopoly, which foiled one of the primary points brought in a suit by Epic Games. That’s the short version of the judgement on Epic Games vs. Apple, which was delivered in a Northern California District Court on Friday morning. Both sides got some of what they wanted, which could lead to a lot of big changes in how modern mobile ma ..read more